


On the Edge of Holiness

by Aethelflaed, sevdrag (seventhe)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Agender Aziraphale (Good Omens), Angst, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang, Female-Presenting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Middle Ages, Reverse Big Bang Challenge, Swords, The Arrangement (Good Omens), Uneasy Allies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29072034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelflaed/pseuds/Aethelflaed, https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/pseuds/sevdrag
Summary: The year is 1020 CE.Aziraphale and Crowley haven’t spoken in decades, and it seems their friendship is over.But a new threat emerges, too large for either to defeat on his own. Can they put aside their differences to face it together? And what could be powerful enough to force an angel and a demon to work together?--Written for the Do It With Style Events 2021 Reverse Bang
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33
Collections: Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang





	On the Edge of Holiness

**Untold eons ago**

The stars hung in the sky, tracing their courses through the void, in an endless eternal dance, a stately march to a music few could hear.

Until the peace was shattered by the Uprising, the War. Millions of angels turning against their brethren, raising arms in violence and being met in turn by more violence. Cries of pain pierced the darkness. Through the emptiness tumbled bodies larger than the stars themselves, locked in deathly combat.

The War raged for an eternity, and was over in an instant.

The rebellious angels Fell.

They plummeted out of the astral plane of Heaven, through the physical plane of Earth, and down, down through dimensions real and imagined and fractal.

The Fallen angels struggled, of course, and their howls set the stars trembling. One, an ordinary star quite indistinguishable from the rest, was struck by a passing wing, clutched at by clawed fingers—

And then there was peace again.

The stars hung in the sky, tracing their courses through the void, in an endless eternal dance, a stately march, but now with one star just slightly out of step with the rest.

\--

**July, 1020**

The bastard was at it again.

Crowley crouched at the edge of the forest, watching the warriors patrolling on horseback. At least a dozen he had seen from here, and now and then a group of foot soldiers as well. The village would be crawling with them, too, and all the humans on alert. 

Well. So much for this job.

One of the warriors paused just ahead, eyes scanning up and down the poorly maintained road. He wore mail armor, covered by a tabard with some coat of arms Crowley didn’t recognize, something with flowers. Somewhere from the south, he guessed, a knight in service to one of a hundred kings or dukes fighting for control of this part of the world.

Not that Crowley cared about any of that. Rulers came and went, but the work of Temptation remained largely unchanged. No, what worried him was the knight’s sword.

Even in the scabbard, it glowed with a faint holy light, and an echoing aura surrounded the knight himself.

Heaven had a whole hierarchy of elevated humans, with titles like _Soldier of the Light, Blessed Warrior,_ and the highest of all, _Holy Knight of Heaven._ From what Crowley could tell from where he crouched, this knight was mid-ranked. The blessing would allow him to see the demon’s true nature, and the weapon could destroy him with a single cut.

Each of the knights Crowley had seen carried the same blessing, and at least some of the soldiers had a similar one.

Hissing to himself, the demon slunk back further into the shadows of the trees. He didn’t know _why,_ perhaps, but the _who_ was clear enough. It had been too much to hope that their last fight would be the end of it; now, the angel had declared war.

Another group of foot soldiers wandered past, boiled leather armor and polearms of varying design, some not far removed from farming tools. They chatted as they patrolled, but a sharp word from the knight snapped them back to attention, scanning the treeline.

Blessed they might be, but they were still human. Sooner or later, they’d get tired, or hungry, or bored, and would wander off. If he could just get to his emergency den, Crowley could wait them out, even if it took years.

But first he had to get there, which meant crossing the bloody road.

The soldiers followed the road around the next bend, vanishing from sight. Crowley could still hear the distant tramp of their feet, and more – another group, coming from the other direction, probably accompanied by two more knights by the sound of it.

Just for the moment, though, he was left with only the single warrior and his horse on an otherwise empty stretch of road.

_Come on,_ Crowley whispered into the knight’s mind. _It’s a hot day. Humid. You’ve been out since dawn._ The knight was disciplined, self-assured, and his resilience clearly enhanced by angelic power, but the words found their way into his subconscious. _A short rest won’t hurt anything. Who’s going to know? Who’s going to care?_

The knight shifted in his seat, causing the horse to shuffle its hooves. The armored figure shook his head, then pulled off his pointed helm, revealing a young face framed by a coif of metal rings and a short, thick beard. He patted at his forehead with a sleeve, then turned aside, fumbling for a waterskin.

It was the best Crowley was going to get.

He burst out of the forest, projecting the image of an enormous snake. The blessed knight wouldn’t be fooled, but the horse was, rearing up on its hind legs and turning to bolt away.

Crowley darted across the road, hoping to go unnoticed in the distraction, or at least to slow the knight down, long enough for a head start. No such luck: the warrior easily kept his seat and grabbed the reins, bringing his animal back under control.

“Here!” the warrior cried. “The Beast is here! Before it escapes! To me!”

_Beast,_ Crowley thought distastefully, pine needles crunching underfoot. But the forest was less dense on this side. Nowhere to hide, not really, so he ran, scrambling through the smaller trees that grew in the shade of the giants.

Somewhere a horn sounded, echoing through the woods, and soon the forest was filled with the drumming of feet and hooves.

The demon stumbled, out of breath. He managed to stop himself from falling, scraping his hands across the rough bark of a tree. Every root seemed to reach up to trip him, every branch to snag at his tunic and hair. He didn’t _think_ celestial power had possessed the forest, bringing it to life to rise against him, but at this point he wasn’t putting anything past that bastard.

Something zipped past his ear, and the tree ahead sprouted a new branch, like an arrow, but smaller.

“Crossbows? _Really?”_ Crowley demanded, setting off at a run again, but shouting was a mistake. Three more shot past, one slicing through the sleeve of his tunic, another nicking his cheek, the short feathers on the back leaving a burning cut that slowly dripped down his chin.

The pounding of approaching hooves, and Crowley glanced back to see a wicked hooked hammer held out at the height of his head. He dodged, if you could call it that, rolling across the ground and behind a tree. But before he could get to his feet, another knight, this one with a glowing sword held aloft, materialized before him, shouting something.

Crowley didn’t wait to find out what he wanted. There was a little creek up ahead. He should be able to jump across it, but the humans would need to find the spot where the banks were shallow, half a mile downstream. That should buy him enough time to get to safety—

He didn’t know where the net came from. One moment, Crowley was running at top speed through the trees, the next he was tangled in a mesh of glowing fibers, sprawled in the dirt.

The net didn’t hurt, not really, but as Crowley hooked his fingers around the strands to tear at them, a distant numbness fell over him. More blessings.

As the humans gathered, Crowley tried his last defense. The net wouldn’t let him change his form, but he could still create the illusion of it, filling their minds with the most horrifying shape he could imagine.

A few of the soldiers broke and ran. One cried, “What is it?” and another responded, “A beast! From the blackest pits of Hell!”

Then Crowley found a glowing holy blade pointed at his throat, and a knight bending over him. “Beast or no, it’s our prisoner now.”

\--

Crowley recognized a war camp when he saw one. No one could quite beat the Romans for efficiency and organization, of course, but whoever had designed this one had learned well. It was laid out almost like a miniature town, roads running between perfectly straight rows of tents, larger ones around the edges for the knights, smaller ones for soldiers grouped close to their lords. A hastily-dug ditch lined with sharpened poles marked the perimeter, and a large commander’s tent stood at the center, between a set of supply huts and workshops on one side and a large open space where soldiers talked and trained on the other.

Though the tents of the camp were marked in the heraldic colors of the knights – brilliant yellows, blues, reds, greens – the commander’s tent and the broad covered pavilion attached to it were an almost impossibly pure white. The side of the pavilion closest to the training ground was raised to allow light and a little wind to enter.

Arms still bound behind him in glowing rope, Crowley trudged after his captors, down the main road of the camp towards the central tent. Soldiers emerged to watch him, a hush falling over each crowd as he passed. All illusions dropped, they would see him in his usual human corporation: tall, narrow and male, dressed in a knee-length black tunic and woolen hose. He’d lost his cloak in the run through the forest, and hadn’t been able to clean up the rips and mud that had ruined his outfit. His brilliant red hair had also broken loose, tumbling down well past his shoulders in curls and waves, although a few of the braids remained intact.

Every time he took a step that wasn’t straight forward, one of the blessed swords emerged to hover by his ribs. Completely unjustified, he’d barely resisted at all. Only tried to run away twice, the whole walk back.

As they drew near the command tent, Crowley finally got a good look at the pavilion, a mobile warroom of some sort. A broad table held some loose sheets of parchment, and was covered in little pieces of carved wood; a few smaller tables held odds and ends, but otherwise the space was remarkably clear of clutter. A few more humans were gathered around the main table, listening to their commander speak.

“...another report of fighting, but it doesn’t seem to be related. Once the scouts are rested, I’d like them to go north and look for rumors along the river here…”

Bent over the table – presumably looking at a map – a figure in a white bliaut, a gown of brilliant cream-colored silk that hugged ample curves before tumbling down in acres of flowing fabric to brush through the dirt.[1] The sleeves were tight over the thick biceps before falling open in more waterfalls of gold-trimmed silk. Somehow, despite the mud and dust and dirt of the camp, every inch of priceless fabric was unstained. The veil did little to hide the long platinum curls, or the profile of a very familiar face.

The knights shoved Crowley down onto his knees.

“We captured the prisoner, my Lady,” one said, voice positively oozing obsequiousness.

The figure turned in a swirl of pale skirts and looked down at Crowley with clear blue eyes.

“Hello, Aziraphale,” he drawled sardonically. “I see you’ve finally decided to have me killed.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” the angel snapped. “I told them to bring you in alive, and here you are.”

“They _hunted_ me. With _crossbows!”_

“A perfectly mundane weapon that wouldn’t be able to harm you, even with a direct hit.”

“Still hurts,” Crowley snarled, pulling open the cut on his cheek again, sending a fresh trickle of blood down his face. “And their swords are _blessed!”_

“They could hardly have corralled you into the trap without a plausible threat.”

“One of them tried to take my head off with a warhammer!”

“Oh, dear.” Aziraphale glanced at the two knights behind Crowley. “I’ll have to speak to them about their...overzealous enthusiasm, but still, you are unharmed.”

“Only by luck. I could have been discorporated!”

“You weren’t responding to my messages!”

_“You said you never wanted to speak to me again!”_

The words hung in the air of the suddenly silent camp. One of the knights shuffled his feet, coughing uncomfortably.

“Well.” Aziraphale’s hands ran down the front of the dress, tugging the pale silk smooth. “Things have changed. Obviously.” With a quick nod, the angel dismissed the guards and other attendants, leaving them with relative privacy. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I brought you here,” Aziraphale started in the careful voice of a rehearsed speech.

“Don’t care.” Crowley turned his eyes to the ground and resolutely tried to ignore the angel standing less than ten feet away.

“Crowley! There’s no need for—” A heavy breath. “This will be much easier if we can at least agree to be civil.”

“Civil? _Civil?_ Angel, I’m kneeling in the dirt, bound up like a prisoner _on your orders._ Is that what you call ‘civil’?”

A moment later, Aziraphale sank to the earth in front of Crowley, skirts spread wide to either side. “I’ll untie you, if you agree to hear me out.” One hand reached towards the cut on Crowley’s face.

He jerked his head away. “No deal. _Your problems are not my problems,_ remember?”

The words elicited the smallest gasp from Aziraphale, which tugged at something in Crowley’s gut. He tried very hard to ignore that, too, eyes fixed to the dirt floor.

“I know what I said, and I meant it. I am an _angel,_ Crowley, and I’m in this world on a sacred mission of, of peace and stability and all things good, and – _don’t roll your eyes at me!_ I _cannot_ perform evil acts, not even to help you. It isn’t in my nature!”

“Then I guess I can’t help you either,” Crowley snapped. “Sorry you wasted all that effort bringing me in. Now either set me free or kill me, because I can’t stand to look at you right now.”

“Crowley…” The demon kept his face turned to the corner of the tent. It was much easier if he couldn’t see Aziraphale’s eyes. “Do you _want_ to be enemies?”

He tried to pretend it sounded like a threat, that he didn’t hear the pain in Azirpahale’s voice. But even Crowley’s imagination wasn’t that good. “No. You know perfectly well I don’t. But I don’t see this working any other way, do you?”

With a rustle of silk, Aziraphale stood up again, taking a shaky breath. Then the ropes around Crowley’s arms vanished. “There. You’re free to go, if you choose. Or you can stay and hear—”

He rose to his feet in one smooth motion and turned away, walking towards the camp – towards daylight – before his resolve failed, before he was pulled once more into the angel’s orbit, before they started again the endless cycle of joy and pain that seemed to be the only way an angel and a demon could coexist.

He stepped out of the tent, preparing to run if need be, when he heard Aziraphale’s voice, so soft he might not have been meant to hear it at all, “I need your help.”

There it was. Aziraphale’s most deadly attack. The one phrase that would pierce Crowley’s heart, every time, no matter what. He tried to take another step, tried to pull away, but the battle was already lost. Had been lost the moment he saw the angel’s face, really.

“Nnnnnh,” Crowley growled, spinning back to meet the pain and fear and uncertainty he knew would be in Aziraphale’s eyes. “Fine. I’ll listen. Just tell me what’s so bloody important you had to send an _army_ after me.”

\--

Crowley bent over Aziraphale’s map, scowling as he rubbed at his wrists. They weren’t hurt, of course, Aziraphale had blessed the rope himself and had very specifically stipulated that Crowley was not to be harmed. It was just his usual tricks, begging for attention or trying to make a point.

Even knowing this, it very nearly worked. Aziraphale had to fight not to reach out, inspect Crowley’s arms, heal him, take care of him. Tidy up his tunic and pull the twigs out of his hair, scold him until he made that particular frown that meant he was hiding a smile...

_Enough. You know where that leads. Don’t make that mistake again._

Of course, it was much easier to be _done_ with Crowley when they weren’t in the same tent. When he wasn’t watching Crowley shrug off the anger and tension, burying it under a lazy, coiled dignity and a sardonic smirk, as if he’d entered the camp as an honored guest, not a prisoner.

It helped a little that Crowley still wouldn’t quite meet his eyes, but that hurt, too. It hurt to talk, and to be silent; to see Crowley bound, to see him recover.

Would it ever stop hurting?

“The rumors began to reach me nearly a year ago,” Aziraphale began, stepping around the table to put as much distance between himself and Crowley as possible. He took a deep breath and tried to gather his thoughts again. “I didn’t pay them any heed at first, of course. Just the usual human bravado, I thought, exaggerating their own strength, or that of their enemies. Whatever makes a better story.”

The map covered most of the table, showing all of Europe in slightly more detail than human cartographers could usually manage. Scattered across it were markers, squares carved from wood, painted with symbols to indicate castles, cities, battles. Aziraphale kept a copy sketched out on a smaller piece of parchment and studied it every night, but this larger map helped him to grasp the scale of it.

Crowley tapped at a few markers, turning them to study the symbols, trying to make sense of it. “What kind of rumors?”

“It sounds a bit silly,” Aziraphale confessed, tugging at the long silk sleeves of his gown. He wasn’t sure why he should suddenly feel _nervous,_ he was quite confident in his conclusions, but he also knew how Crowley liked to make a mockery of things. “Again, you know how humans—”

“Yeah. I do.” A flash of golden-eyed glare across the table, then Crowley turned back to study the map again. “I also know you wouldn’t have dragged me here if it wasn’t...important. Not after last time.”

Aziraphale bit his lip. How could Crowley speak of it so calmly?

“You’re right, of course.” The angel turned to a side table and picked up his notepad, a small book made from a dozen variable-sized pieces of parchment crudely sewn together. “The initial rumors claimed an army – larger than any raised in at least six centuries – was burning its way across Europe. Ah, here.” He tilted the pad sideways to read a description running down the edge of a crammed page. “One young man described it quite poetically. ‘A tide of soldiers stretching from horizon to horizon, the glint of sun on spears rivaling all the stars in the sky. When they marched, the earth trembled, the dust of their passing choked flocks and fields. Nothing survived. And at their head, a warrior ten feet tall, armor glowing like the sun, and a sword that cut through stone and wood and flesh as easily as air. All who beheld him lost their will to fight, and fled in terror, if they did not fall dead on the spot.’”

“Bit of a mixed metaphor, but it certainly makes a good story,” Crowley said, tapping the battle markers as if counting them. “But I’d definitely have heard of an army like _that_ around. And I expect your map would have a lot more of _these.”_

“Well, yes. Obviously this is exaggerated. Very few of the tales I’ve come across are first, or even third, hand accounts. My source here was an aspiring bard with a flair for the dramatic. But I’ve taken to collecting all the accounts I can find, looking for common threads.” Aziraphale had marked his notes with lines in different colored inks, trying to find correlations in the data. He turned to the first page, and a few paragraphs marked by a thick blue line. “I’ve managed to locate a few eye witnesses, starting just before Christmas last year.”

“Was this one also singing for his supper in a tavern?” Crowley’s frown hadn’t vanished, but the furrow of his brow had become less severe. “Or was this one of your fancy banquets in London?”

“Paris, actually, or on the road there at least…”

\--

“You know,” the pale woman in the white dress said as she and her companions lined up against the side of the cart, “I don’t think this is entirely in keeping with the holiday spirit.”

“B-be quiet!” Niklos warned, waving his spear at her. The other travelers – three finely dressed young ladies, an older man with a limp, and the driver – were all cooperating as expected, eyes down, properly cowed. Fools, of course, to be traveling these roads without guards, and the men Niklos had fallen in with moved quickly to take advantage. Conrad walked down the line with his sacks, and the travelers meekly surrendered their valuables without a word.

But this lady was different. She was at least a decade older than Niklos’s mother, with pure white hair, but there was no frailty about her. She stood as tall as any man he’d seen in the army, and she had a firmness in her step that belied her figure built of soft curves. The long white gown she wore, barely concealed under a light cloak with fur trim, was impossibly thin, some kind of linen that flowed like water, rippling as she moved. She bowed neither to the group of brigands nor to the sharp winter wind, taking in everything with a steady, piercing blue gaze.

Just now those eyes were turned to Niklos, and she pushed aside the point of his spear with two fingers, a sharp tap that nearly knocked the weapon out of his cold fingers. “Kindly _don’t_ point that at anyone if you don’t know how to use it. I am in no mood to be reattaching limbs tonight.”

“Actually,” said Petir, stepping forward to press a knife to her ribs, “you’ll find that we’re quite adept with these weapons. We’re all soldiers. Or were, until we found a more...lucrative profession.”

“Were you?” The lady stepped away from Petir as if she hadn’t even noticed the threat, walking towards Niklos, hand running up the spear shaft to keep it pointed away. “This one hardly looks old enough. What’s your name, young man?”

“N-Niklos.” He couldn’t resist answering. Couldn’t look away from her eyes. They were colder than the snow that piled alongside the road, they were _bottomless,_ and he kept falling, falling…

“Niklos,” she repeated with a smile. “I’m Lady Eliza Fell. Were you really in the army?”

He nodded, wishing his feet would let him step back. “I...back in Saxony…”

He hadn’t been a soldier, not really. A few knights and their men had come through looking for scouts and messengers that knew the land. Niklos, fifteen and bored of his father’s farm, had eagerly volunteered.

But one thing had led to another, and he’d found himself clutching spear and shield as two armies collided in the summer heat, some men shouting in fear, others in pain, others to terrify the enemy, and he couldn’t tell the shouts apart. An endless wall of noise. Knights rode, head and shoulders above the foot soldiers, lances and warhammers and swords at the ready.

One broke through the shield wall, and a hundred men poured after, cutting down soldiers who’d served longer than Niklos had been alive, cutting through them as if they were green recruits that didn’t know which way to hold their shields.

And the knight still bore down on him, implacable, unrelenting, sword held aloft, shining even in the dim light. He looked no different from the others, but there was an air about him, an aura, like – like—

Like the one Lady Eliza Fell had, walking down the length of his spear.

“I’m talking to you!” Petir snapped, grabbing the Lady by her arm, and Niklos found himself back in the present. Conrad had finished collecting jewelry and was now helping Thomas climb into the cart, where several large chests were stashed. Timo and Jone were leading the horses off the road towards their camp, down in the forest. Petir grinned, running a hand down the Lady’s sleeve. “Is this silk you’re wearing?”

She studied Niklos a fraction of a second longer before turning her smile on Petir. “Why yes, thank you for noticing. So few have even _heard_ of silk this far west. It’s wonderful to meet a man of such refined tastes—”

“Take it off.”

The smile vanished. “I beg your pardon?”

“I once saw a man trade a scrap of silk no bigger than my hand for enough coin to feed a family for a year. This gown is worth more than everything in the wagon put together. We’ll be taking that.” Petir rested a hand on her hip. “It’s not the only thing we’ll be taking.”

The Lady blinked.

With an echoing _CRACK!_ The back of the cart split, dumping Conrad and Thomas onto the road. The weight of the cart shifted, and a heavy oak chest tumbled onto them in a crash. The horses, spooked by the sound, reared back, flailing hooves knocking Timo and Jone into the snowbanks, before they turned and galloped back to the road.

Petir half turned to see what had caused the commotion, and Lady Eliza Fell tugged the spear from Niklos’s hand and cracked it against Petir’s skull so hard the wooden shaft split in two, sending him cartwheeling up the road.

Niklos tried to step back, skidded on the ice, and fell hard into the ditch beside the road, two sets of hooves bearing down on him—

“Whoa,” Lady Fell said, stretching out a hand, and the two horses trotted to a stop, tails flicking. “Yes, I’m sure you had quite the scare. William? Be a dear and hitch these two back to the cart again. Roland, help Emma get her things, I’m afraid the chest may have split open. Cateline, Maria, just gather the sacks, we’ll work out who belongs to what once we reach Paris.”

Then she turned those implacable, unrelenting eyes back onto Niklos. “And I believe you, young man, were about to tell me a story.”

\--

“Angel…”

Aziraphale glanced up from the notepad to see that Crowley had gone tense, glaring at the map as if to set fire to it. _Oh, dear._ He’d told the story quickly and with little detail, but even still, it had been enough to bring out the demon’s strange protectiveness, which used to always make Aziraphale’s heart skip a beat—

Oh. Still did, apparently.

He swallowed back the unwanted emotion and put the notepad firmly down. “I hope you’re not about to make a scene over something that happened _months_ ago.”

“Why were you traveling without guards?” Crowley growled, hand curling into a fist at his side. “And why are you wearing that – that ridiculous outfit?”

“I wear what I like.” Aziraphale crossed his arms. “This is _comfortable,_ it’s _fashionable,_ and I won’t hear a word from _you_ about absurd clothing choices. As for the guards, they would have slowed us down, and I knew I could handle anything we came across. Which I _did.”_

“If I’d been there…”

“But you weren’t.” Aziraphale pressed his lips together, suppressing a shiver at the demon’s soft words. “Crowley, we have no time for this foolishness. I was perfectly in control of the situation, and – and you could hardly have done anything but make it worse.”

Crowley clenched his jaw and turned away.

_Stay strong,_ Aziraphale told himself firmly. _This is for the best._

After a moment, Crowley turned back. “Nh. Right. So. The kid got scared out of the army. Doesn’t mean anything. This...unstoppable knight might just be his terrified brain, blowing it all out of proportion.”

“It wasn’t. I could _feel_ it on him, the residue of the encounter. He’d had a close brush with something far beyond the mortal realm.” He turned the pages of his notepad, eyes skimming the descriptions without reading them. “And that’s when I started searching, speaking to travelers, mercenaries, refugees. Compiling information. And yes, there are discrepancies, but they all mention a knight or general – a leader – with an aura of unmistakable...Goodness.”

“Goodness?”

“Yes. _Heavenly_ Goodness.” Aziraphale waved a hand over his map, carefully folding back the long bliaut sleeve to keep it out of the way. “Every eyewitness I could find had encountered something powerfully and undeniably of my side, something that left them with an aura not _wholly_ unlike a blessing. And that _something_ is currently cutting a swath across Europe, destroying evil wherever it can be found.” He pointed to one of the larger cities. “Places that were in the grip of criminals or besieged by raiders, now operating in peace and security.” Gestured to a line of battles following a river. “Borders that have been in dispute for generations now settled. People able to travel without fear of bandits—”

“Because they’ve all been expelled to Paris?” Crowley’s eyes narrowed. “And didn’t you mention _refugees?_ People fleeing these lands?”

“Ah. Yes. It would appear the power is being wielded...inexpertly.”

“Inexpertly.” Crowley flicked a finger at a marker indicating a castle, sending it spinning into two more of the same. According to reports, all three had been razed to the ground in the space of a week, the countryside between them reduced to ash. “So what is it? Your side sending down an overzealous agent to clear out the sinful lands? Since that worked out so well back—” His hand jerked away as if the demon had touched Holy Water. “It’s not bloody _Sandalphon_ again, is it?”

“Nothing of the sort,” Aziraphale assured him, trying to ignore the knot in his stomach at the suggestion. No, he’d ruled _that_ out, thank goodness. “Based on the descriptions, I’ve put together a sort of timeline. The earliest reports relate to some sort of unrest, here.” He traced a circle around a collection of markers, north of their current position. “Then an army moved out, south and east.” He ran his finger along a row of battles that ended abruptly. “It went quiet for a time, then reappeared over here” – a scattering of small disturbances – “and for the last few months has been heading south again.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Whenever we’ve interfered before – leading an army, or even just blessing the men and providing support – there’s always been a direction, a purpose. This is…” Aziraphale shrugged. “This is too _human._ From what I can tell, command has passed to several different leaders, one after the other. It seems the entire army disbanded at least once, possibly twice, all in the space of a few years. This simply isn’t how we run things.”

“So…” Crowley glanced over his shoulder, contemplating the army outside. Aziraphale tried not to notice the cut across his cheek, or the way his hair caught the light. “If it isn’t you, who is it?” 

“Not us _directly.”_ Aziraphale tapped his finger on the last page of notes. “No, I think we’re looking at a holy artifact of some sort, passed from one human to the next. A very powerful one. There are many mentions of the leaders carrying a sword – glowing, or as one put it, ‘etched with shadows.’ That’s my best guess. Sadly, no one seems to have gotten a good look at it.”

“Sure they have,” Crowley grumbled. “They just didn’t survive it.”

“Well. That’s not much help is it?” Aziraphale ran his finger down a list of descriptions marked by thin red dashes. “I suppose it could be some other piece of equipment, a helmet or dagger perhaps. But given how powerful this seems to be, it could hardly have gone unnoticed.”

“No, I get it.” Crowley shook his head, taking half a step back. “Bloody swords again. I thought your lot had them all locked away centuries ago.”

“We did.” The brief experiment with giving humans weapons of great power had backfired rather spectacularly. They became stronger the more they were used, some alarmingly quickly. If this one had seen continuous combat across several years… “I can’t imagine how the humans could retrieve one from its resting place without alerting me and an entire legion of angels.”

“Clever bastards,” Crowley grunted, tracing the uneven march of destruction again. “Which do you think it is? Caledfwlch? Durendal? Fragarach? Laevateinn?”

“Wasn’t Laevateinn one of yours?”

“Uh...the one that killed all those Swedish kings? Never went dull?”

“No, that’s Mistilteinn. I believe the legends say Laevateinn was forged by Loki to kill some sort of rooster.”

Crowley ran his fingers through his hair, sending curly locks of red tumbling in every direction. “Yeah, that sounds familiar. Damn thing kept waking me up.”

His golden eyes caught Aziraphale’s, and for a moment it felt like old times. For a moment, he almost smiled.

The angel dropped his eyes to study the map again.

“Regardless, I’ve yet to identify the sword, if indeed that’s what we’re looking for. The descriptions are too vague.”

“Which is why you’re here, where the first attacks happened, instead of the most recent.” A long finger dragged idly across the sketched out landscape.

“Correct. Perhaps someone can tell me where the weapon was found; and even if not, an eyewitness might help me identify it.”

“And then?”

“Track down the army and whoever is currently wielding this weapon. Retrieve it, hide it, unmake it. Whatever it takes to get it out of human hands before it...overloads.”

One of the holy weapons had done so, nearly five hundred years before, an earth-shattering eruption that had covered the entire continent in a cloud of dust. Crops failed, bringing famine, followed by plague. The kingdoms hadn’t recovered until over a century had passed.

And that had been a sword used under constant angelic supervision.

Crowley nodded, once more staring at the map. He’d barely moved during the entire conversation, which was...quite unusual, really. It made Aziraphale want to pace and fidget even more, to somehow restore the balance, absurd as that sounded.

“Just one question,” the demon finally said, voice soft and tense as a lute string. “Why me? Why are you telling me all this?”

“Tactics, my dear fellow. I’m hardly going to be able to handle something like this on my own, am I? I may not have a clear plan yet, but a second agent doubles the possibilities, you must see that.”

“Oh, I do. But you have an _army,_ Aziraphale. Heaven has a whole team trained for just this sort of emergency, and we parted…” His fist tightened on the table, clenched so tight Aziraphale worried the corporation’s fingers would snap. “You didn’t need to come to _me_ for help. But you did. Why?”

“I just…” Aziraphale shook his head. “Obviously, because…” It was a simple enough question, yet it sent his mind into a whirl from which it couldn’t escape. “Blast, Crowley, I should think the answer was obvious!”

He looked up to find Crowley’s eyes locked on him, strangely unreadable. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t escape their searching glare.

And then, Crowley pushed away from the table, brushing his hands down his black tunic, as if just noticing the dust it had picked up on the walk through the camp. “Look, I’m helping either way. I just want to know your answer, alright? By the end of this. I think you owe me that much.”

“I...yes. That seems...yes.” It must be the heat of the day, getting into Aziraphale’s mind, not helped by all this talking and excitement. He had a good reason – _many_ good reasons – for seeking out Crowley, and he’d remember them all after a cool drink and a rest in his tent.

Meanwhile, Crowley poked his head out into the training yard, and the sharp _clink_ of mail rattling told Aziraphale his guard had leapt to attention.

“By the way,” the demon drawled, pacing back towards the map, starting to circle it, then catching himself. “Your men all think I’m some sort of wicked beast of Hell.”

“They aren’t wrong, dear boy.”

“Nh. Suppose not. But it will make it difficult for me to work with them.”

Aziraphale sighed, pulling himself back into the moment. “Perhaps you should have thought of that before appearing to them as some sort of acid-spitting winged monstrosity.”

“I was a _little_ more worried about their holy weapons. You can’t actually expect me to stay in a camp full of those things.”

“Temporary blessings,” Aziraphale assured him with a wave of the hand. “Most fade in half a day. Repeated exposure, plus the oaths they spoke to bind themselves to me, should give them some resistance to whatever powers this holy artifact has.”

_“That’s_ going to be a problem,” Crowley grumbled, but mostly to himself. “I can help you track down the thing, at least, but once we get close…”

“Ah. Well.” Aziraphale stepped around the table, stopping a mere five feet from Crowley. It seemed alarmingly close. “I...did have a thought on that. If you still trust me.”

\--

“Just up this hill, I think,” Aziraphale called, stepping off the path to hike up the short, steep rise, silk train dragging through the grass.

Crowley tried to follow, but once again a swarm of a dozen knights crowded around him, holding him back. They’d appeared the moment he’d stepped out of the pavilion, surrounding him, fencing him in, apparently to defend their lady’s honor against the depredations of the wicked Hell Beast.

Aziraphale said nothing to put them at ease, just kept walking, head high and arrogant.

With a sigh, Crowley trailed behind, trapped by the wall of overeager knights. They could at least try _walking faster._ Maybe Aziraphale should give them a blessing for that instead of—

Crowley narrowed his eyes and studied the group again. Nearly all the blessings had worn off, though the aura of holiness still remained. One knight with a helmet etched in gold and silver still had some supernatural alertness, and a young man with flowers on his device carried a holy sword. Neither of the men was beside Crowley, though. Terrible tactics? Or were they completely unaware of their own blessings?

“Oi. Flowers,” he called to the younger knight. “How long have you lot been traveling with…” The knights all referred to Aziraphale as _My Lady._ Did they know they were in the presence of an angel? Crowley rarely bothered with aliases these days, but sometimes Aziraphale could be very particular about playing a role. “...with your patron?”

“Two months,” Sir Flowers said. “Though before that she was a guest for six weeks of our lord, the Comte de—”

“Don’t care.” Probably not long enough to get used to supernatural elements, then. “How about that sword?”

Flowers frowned. “I’m...not sure what you mean. It was my father’s, given to me last Christmas for my—”

“Enough out of you, Beast,” snarled another man, this one with some sort of bird emblazoned on his chest. He shoved Crowley hard enough to send a human sprawling.

Crowley made a heroic effort to hold his temper. “That was _not_ necessary.”

“Shut up and mind your place.”

“And _you_ mind where you’re walking. I’d like to get up the blasted hill before sunset.” He attempted to push on ahead, but Bird Knight stepped in his way, shoving again.

“Do not attempt to approach Our Lady.”

“Or what?”

The knight’s hand fell to grasp his sword. “We took you down once before, and we’ll do it again.”

“Is that right?” A snap of his fingers, and Crowley transformed into a ten-foot creature of deep red flame and oily black smoke. He spread his wings wide, blotting out the sun.

The knights stumbled back in shock, fumbling for their weapons. He swiped a claw at them and the men scattered, crying out in fear. Only three remained, falling into defensive positions and trying to surround the beast – Sir Flowers, the Bird Knight, and Gold Helm.

He easily knocked Bird Knight’s sword away, then shifted right to avoid Flowers’ holy blade. Even though it missed him, he could still feel the heat of it scorch across him, hotter than his own flames. But if he feinted left then struck to the right—

“Crowley! Kindly stop terrorizing my men.”

In an instant, he was back to his usual form. “They started it!”

“My Lady!” Bird Knight interrupted. “We cannot trust this creature! Already it has revealed its treachery—”

_“His_ treachery,” Crowley snapped, crossing his arms to glare at Bird. “You look familiar. Didn’t you have a warhammer earlier?”

“Enough! All of you!” Aziraphale stood atop the hill, hands on hips, glaring furiously down at them. “I have found an appropriate spot. Let us proceed.”

Crowley pushed past the remaining guard and hurried up to meet Aziraphale. “Don’t know what use _they’re_ supposed to be,” he griped. “Bloody useless – half of them ran away!” Two of the knights, it seemed, had run up the hill to defend Aziraphale. Four others were nowhere to be seen. “Not even good for _bait.”_

“Crowley, hush. They’ll hear you.”

“Good. Best thing for them is to turn around and go home.” Crowley’s eyes traced the horizon. It was almost inappropriately bright, with sky clear blue overhead, but clouds were beginning to pile up in the distance, behind the ruins of a castle, crumbling and overgrown. “If you’re right about this, a lot of them will die when we meet that army.”

“A great deal more will die if we don’t,” Aziraphale countered. “If I’m right.”

Near the top of the hill, a wide stone lay flat on the ground, almost like a stage. Angel and demon stood on it while the knights gathered behind them. 

Aziraphale paused, adjusting the drape of one long silken sleeve, before shooting a glare at Crowley. “You’re not wearing that, are you?”

With everything that had happened, Crowley had forgotten how his own outfit had been ruined in the chase. He tugged at the torn sleeve, but really it would be better to start from scratch.

He snapped his fingers, grinning as the knights flinched and reached for their swords, but this time it was just a change of clothes. Long black robes, hanging past his knees, with scandalously short sleeves that stopped barely past his shoulders. Wide bands of embroidery at the hem and cuffs, red on black with a few threads of real gold, and more on a sash hanging loosely over his hips. He spun once, feeling the fine linen glide across his bare legs, shaking his hair, growing it longer, until it tumbled almost to his waist.

He paused to wave at the knights, who seemed more shocked by this than by his last transformation.

Aziraphale looked Crowley over and tutted. “That will do. What about your feet?”

“What about them?” Crowley held out his bare foot, wiggling the toes; his soles were dotted with black scales.

“Oh, never mind. Just kneel, right there. Sir Rowan? Your sword, please.”

Crowley tucked the robe carefully under his knees and pressed his hair down, quickly rubbing the cut off his cheek. He glanced up just in time to see Sir Flowers hand his blessed sword to Aziraphale. “Not that one,” Crowley hissed.

“It needs to be blessed in order to be binding. I won’t hurt you.”

“Yeah, unless this whole ceremony destroys me.” 

“If you’re not certain, we could—”

“No. I trust you.” Crowley folded his arms and bowed his head, waiting.

Aziraphale tapped the point of the sword against the rock, and it rang like a bell, rolling across the hill. Crowley could feel the power of it, pressing against him.

“Demon Crowley. A holy quest has been laid before you. Do you accept this quest, and bind yourself to it, forsaking all other oaths and responsibilities until its completion?”

“I do.” At those two words, something surged within him, his ties to Hell, trying to reclaim him. He crossed his arms tighter, forcing it back down.

“And will you fulfil your duties faithfully, pursuing your task even to the ends of the earth?”

“I will.” The heat from the sword seemed to surround him, pushing back against the bonds inside him. The two powers warred through his veins, threatening to tear him apart.

“And do you submit to the will of Hea—”

“Aziraphale!” The angel’s mouth shut with a snap. That oath probably _would_ destroy Crowley.

“Do you…” Aziraphale improvised quickly. “Do you swear to...work...for the good of humanity, and seek the path of...least harm?”

_That’s hardly the same thing._ But Aziraphale thought it was, and that would hopefully be enough. “I do.”

Aziraphale lifted the sword, and Crowley wondered that the hillside remained calm. He felt like he was caught in a hurricane.

“From the Grace that is given to me, I grant you all you need to complete your task. Take it with my bl— Er. My trust, my goodwill and my...respect.”

The flat of the sword gently landed on Crowley’s left shoulder. The storm within him rose – and dissipated, swept aside by a strange gentle warmth. When the sword lifted and came to tap his right shoulder, Crowley braced himself, but felt only a faint tingle of power, like an itch, gone a moment later. The blade lifted one more time, and pressed against his forehead, feeling like completely mundane steel.

“It is done,” Aziraphale said, with barely a quiver in his voice. “Arise, Sir Crowley, first Demonic Knight of Heaven.”

[1] This alone was enough of a hint for Crowley as to his captor’s identity. The wealthiest kings in Europe might have enough silk to trim the hem of their finest robe; _no one_ owned a full garment of it, with enough remaining for such elaborate sleeves.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Big thanks to Sevdrag, of course, for creating this lovely artwork that immediately inspired not just this chapter, but the whole story to follow, and who has been very encouraging as I juggled so many projects.
> 
> Also thanks to everyone on the DIWS Discord, particularly the many volunteer beta readers/cheer leaders.
> 
> Please drop a comment below if you enjoyed the story!  
> \--  
> Historical notes:  
> The knights wear mail armor (essentially shirts composed of steel rings), coifs (caps of steel rings), helmets (made from steel sheets, hammered into a cone, probably with a straight piece protecting the nose), and a tabard (sleeveless garment worn over the armor) with their coat of arms (heraldic symbol identifying the knight and/or his house; also called a device). Their clothing under the armor is similar to what Crowley wears at the start, a tunic and leggings.
> 
> Aziraphale's bliaut is a real, historic type of dress, but the style he wears is about a century early. I've seen references to them as early as this - but not many, and not well-dated - but even these were probably regular tunics or gowns with slightly looser sleeves. The long draping sleeves and trailing hems would come in the 12th century, partially as a way of displaying the wearer's wealth through excess fabric, particularly expensive fabrics like fine linen and silk. At this point, silk rarely made it all the way to western Europe, and never in such quantities. Aziraphale, of course, has encountered it on assignments to the east, has decided he will not be wearing anything else, and has managed to anticipate the direction of fashion for once. ;)
> 
> Caledfwlch - the name of King Arthur's sword in Welsh legends.  
> Durendal - the indestructible sword of Roland, paladin of Charlemagne.  
> Fragarach - sword of Nuada, first king of the Tuatha De Danann in Irish mythology.  
> Laevateinn and Mistilteinn are both from Norse tradition; the former from the Poetic Edda, the latter Hromundar saga Gripssonar.  
> As you can gather, there are many legendary swords, though Laevateinn may have been a spear. Sadly, Crowley does not remember...


End file.
